Based on the stage comedy by Charles W. Bell and Mark Swan (previously filmed in 1920),
Parlor, Bedroom and Bath
is a curious mixture of all that was good and everything that was bad in
Buster Keaton
's talkie features. Keaton plays Reginald Irving, a dimwitted bill-poster who finds himself the pawn in a scheme cooked up by wealthy Jeffrey Haywood (
Reginald Denny
). It seems that Jeffrey will not be permitted to marry Virginia Embrey (
Sally Eilers
) until a suitable husband is found for Virginia's older sister Angelica (
Dorothy Christy
). Since Angelica has rejected all the available suitors, Jeffrey schemes to offer Reginald as an eligible mate. First, however, he has to transform our dopey hero into a gentleman --
and
a great lover. Somehow or other, poor Reginald innocently ends up in a compromising situation involving vampish Polly Hathaway (
Charlotte Greenwood
) and the very married Nita Leslie (
Joan Peers
) at a posh no-tell hotel. Keaton is permitted a few choice pantomimic moments in
Parlor Bedroom and Bath
, notably his scenes with the aggressive Charlotte Greenwood and a spectacular sight gag "borrowed" from his 1920 silent classic
One Week
. On the whole, however, Keaton is lost in a sea of unfunny dialogue and tired farcical situations -- a not untypical pitfall of his MGM talkies. (Incidentally, that baronial "upstate New York" mansion in the film's early scenes was actually Buster Keaton's Beverly Hills home.)